The Deccan Gourmet trail At the JW Marriott New Delhi Aerocity

If you are still eating chicken 65, please stop. It has been so many moons since its début on Deccan Delhi menus…. this prevalent is now a cliché!

At the JW Marriott New Delhi Aerocity, Shri Bala and Executive Chef Sandeep Pande’s kitchen team are busy making a fragrant Kozi Ularthiyatu as part of the hotel’s Deccan Gourmet trail, on at K3 till the 7th of July.

Dissimilar to how most restaurant kitchens make this popular, heavily spiced, dish, in Shri Bala’s version, only Black pepper, curry leaves, garam masala and salt are added to the chicken. Her recipe is honest to goodness and slow fire!'I just serve what we cook at home,' Shri Bala says, conversing why her food tastes so different from most South Indian food festivals’. ‘I can cook for 500 people’ says Shri Bala excitedly, serving me out the Bisebela Bhaath.

At Matamaal

A chartered accountant and a lawyer by profession, Bala was discovered by Chef Ashish Bhasin (now Executive Chef at the Leela Ambience, Gurgaon) when she posted a challenging message on his Facebook wall which led to him actually take her trade test which she passed with flying colours and from then here has been no looking back for this Chennai based passionate home chef. We caught up with Shri Bala and Ashish Bhasin over a meal at Matamaal the next day but that is 'Another story Another day' ( those who follow Pande on Instagram will know this line well)!

Shri Bala has also worked with Sandeep Pande before, when he was spear heading the kitchens of Weligama bay Marriott Resort and Spa in Srilanka.

Coming back to the Deccan Gourmet trail at K3; The cyclic menu includes unusual dishes, counting a velvety poppy seed kheer cooked with sugar and coconut milk, fried semolina fritters and minced mutton deep fried with select Chettinad spices, in addition to well-loved staples like fish cooked with red chilli and coconut paste, Mangalore style chicken curry and a fragrant Moplah biryani. The assortment surely enlarges diners’ gastronomic horizons. Since savours are either acquainted or easy on the palate.  

The Deccan Gourmet trail is on till July 7, 2019. For reservations, contact: +91 11 45212121